Saturday, February 01, 2014

Tracy Moore Marks The 25th Anniversary Of"Cityline" With A Walk Down "Memory" Lane

By Eric Kohanik

It's “Fashion Friday” on Cityline
and the studio audience is buzzing inside City's production centre in
downtown Toronto.

Minutes before taping begins, host
Tracy Moore chats up the crowd before choosing one person to undergo
a makeover that makes jaws drop at the end of the show. After the
taping is done, exhilarated audience members file out, still abuzz
over what they've seen – and over their gift bags containing
products highlighted on the show.

“I want to sit in that audience and
get those prizes,” Moore jokes later.

Cityline has been a daytime
staple for a quarter-century, growing from a local show to a popular
fixture across Canada. With most episodes featuring themes –
including “Around the House,” “Family Day,” “Home Day”
and “Fashion Friday” – the show has built its following with
the help of a lengthy roster of lifestyle experts who make regular
guest appearances.

Cityline will celebrate its 25th
anniversary with a primetime special on Feb. 25. Hosted by Moore, it
will showcase highlights pulled from Cityline's archives.

“It's going to be a walk down memory
lane, for sure.” Moore says.

At the helm of Cityline for just
over five years, the 39-year-old Moore is the third regular host in
the show's history. Although Dini Petty headlined the show when it
launched, it was Marilyn Denis who was the face of Cityline
from 1989 until 2008.

Amid the complex division of media
assets after ChumCity (then City's parent company) was acquired by
CTVglobemedia (now Bell Media) in 2007, Denis (also a morning-radio
co-host on Toronto's CHUM-FM) ended up in CTV's bullpen. The network
eventually launched The Marilyn Denis Show in 2011, using a
format similar to Cityline.

Citytv and Cityline, meanwhile,
became part of the Rogers media empire. After Denis' departure in May
2008, the show used a series of guest hosts before making Moore the
regular host in October.

“It's been a good run,” Moore
reflects. “I don't even think we thought it was going to be this
amazing. It's really turned out well.”

A married mother of two, Moore started
her career as an intern at CTV before becoming a videographer at CBC.
She worked in news at CBC Newsworld (now called CBC News Network) and
Toronto 1 (now known as Sun News) before jumping to City's Breakfast
Television as its reporter and backup news anchor. After taking
time off to have her first child, Moore decided to switch gears,
becoming one of Cityline's guest hosts before landing the gig
as regular host.

Coming from a news background, Moore
says it was “about a year-and-a-half” before she felt comfortable
in the role. “It's such a big show that, for the first few months,
you're trying to figure out who these guest experts are, what the
tone is supposed to be, and how to deal with a live audience,” she
says. “Doing a live lifestyle show is about instant reaction and
that's a tough transition. It took a few months to really understand
how Cityline connects with viewers.”

Cityline's longtime supervising
producer, Chrissie Rejman, disagrees with how soon Moore caught on.
“It was over the course of a month,” Rejman insists. “Tracy was
laughing. She was forgetting that she was 'interviewing' somebody
and, instead, she was having a conversation. That was the difference.
That's what we looked for.”

Rejman is effusive in praising how
Moore connects with viewers – and the studio audience. “What
Tracy is absolutely fantastic at is she's always willing, after the
show, to have her photo taken,” says Rejman. “That personal
contact with everybody is a really important ingredient.”

For her part, Moore says she is just
trying to be herself. “With television being the way it is right
now, people need a little bit of levity with their information,”
she says. “This is what I get from the audience.

“They have a date with us every
morning. They trust us. And we take that very seriously.”

After Almost Six Years On The Sidelines, CBC Jumps Back Into The Olympic Spotlight

By Eric Kohanik

It's been close to six years since CBC
was the official Canadian broadcaster for the Olympics. And, for CBC
Sports Weekend host Scott Russell, sitting on the sidelines for
the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2012 Summer Games in
London wasn't easy to stomach.

“It was, personally, tough to be out
for two Olympics,” Russell admits. “Although I went to Vancouver
and to London, it was in a much different role. We're so happy to be
back in the Olympic broadcasting business at CBC. We couldn't be more
excited.”

CBC once had a lengthy run of Olympic
coverage. Before the CTV/Rogers Olympic Consortium scooped up rights
to Winter 2010 and Summer 2012, CBC had billed itself as “Canada's
Olympic Network” since 1996, broadcasting the Winter Games in
Nagano (1998), Salt Lake City (2002) and Turin (2006) as well as the
Summer Games in Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000), Athens (2004) and
Beijing (2008).

CBC unveiled its broadcast team for the
2014 Winter Games in Sochi at the network's headquarters in Toronto
back on Oct. 30 as it kicked off a 100-day countdown to the opening
ceremonies on Feb. 7. Chief news anchor Peter Mansbridge and Hockey
Night in Canada veteran Ron MacLean will cohost coverage of the
ceremonies from Sochi's Fisht Olympic Stadium. CBC's English-language
Olympic telecasts will then be split into four major dayparts.

Diana Swain and David Amber will
co-host Olympic Morning each day, while Russell will man the
anchor desk for Olympic Daytime. MacLean will take on evening
hosting duties on Olympic Primetime, while Andi Petrillo and
Andrew Change will co-host Olympic Overnight.

Time-zone differences will be a major
factor. Many live events will air during the mornings and afternoons
in Canada. And that will actually put Russell and his Olympic
Daytime telecasts into a “prime” spotlight.

“There's a lot going on in that
time slot and that's perfect,” Russell says. “We'll be moving
around from venue to venue in order to capture as many things as we
can that are going on, live.”

CBC's mainline TV coverage will be
supplemented by TSN, TSN2 and Rogers Sportsnet and Sportsnet One as
well as CBC News Network. Radio coverage will be divvied up between
CBC Radio and TSN Radio, while French-language TV coverage will be
split between Radio-Canada and RDS.

Meanwhile, online coverage at
cbc.ca/olympics will also offer a wide variety of video content. Most
notable among that will be live online streaming of Olympic
competitions.

There have been a lot of technological
and social-media innovations since the last time CBC was Canada's
official Olympic broadcaster. And Russell admits that will mean new
challenges.

“I mean, the last time we covered the
Olympics, in Beijing, I'm pretty sure that the iPad didn't
exist,” Russell jokes. “I'm also positive that Twitter was not a
factor, right? So, this immediacy is a challenge. And the
multi-platform situation is also a challenge.

“But I think it's something we've
concentrated on at CBC. The way we approach Sports Weekend is
now very much a multi-platform strategy. And that's the way Canadians
want to consume the Olympics. They need the information as it
happens.”

CBC has high ratings hopes for its
coverage in Sochi. No wonder. Canadians have always had a fondness
for the Winter Games.

“We have this feeling of being a
winter nation,” Russell muses. “We are able to race down the
mountains, to play on frozen ponds. So, yeah, these are Games that we
are comfortable with. And we are comfortable being at the head of the
class in the Winter Games.

“I think that's the way the country
is built. We are a country of extremes. Our geography lends itself to
playing outside in the winter, and to hockey and skiing and curling
and all of these things that are about us as Canadians. And so I
think it's only natural that, when it comes to the Winter Games, we
sit up and take notice.”